Religious texts often act as moral guides for believers (Geyer & Baumeister, 2005).
However, not all religious texts make the same moral proclamations, and people are often
unaware of which texts (sometimes including their own!) support or oppose various moral
positions, and whether these proclamations match their individual religious beliefs. In some
cases, different parts of the same holy book may seem to contradict each other (Oth, Lindner, &
Nosek, 2010). Furthermore, other factors also influence the moral beliefs of religious people:
personal experience, church sermons, media, and other sources of information can all contribute
to people’s moral beliefs.
Because of the complex sources of people’s moral beliefs and the potentially
contradictory nature of holy texts, religious people might sometimes see congruity and
sometimes see conflict between their own beliefs and those of a particular holy book. When
religious people learn or realize that passages from their own religion’s holy book contradict
their beliefs, or that passages from an opposing religion’s holy book support their beliefs, they
may feel conflicted; this conflict can lead to changes in attitudes and behavior aimed at resolving
the conflict (e.g., Festinger, 1957). Conflicts between religious texts and beliefs, such as the
Bible and feminism (e.g., Denova, 2008; Schlueter, 1997) or the Bible and homosexuality (e.g.,
Barton, 2010; Frontain, 1997), are commonly seen in case studies or qualitative studies.
However, research using experimental manipulation and observation of this conflict, as well as
the resultant changes in attitude, is uncommon.